The author, in the following passage, places the objection before us in a still more striking light: “Being therefore limited to reason for our feeble conceptions of the divine Being of which we are capable, and reason being totally opposed to an order of nature so imperfect as to require or permit repeated interference, and rejecting the supposition of arbitrary suspension of law, such a conception of the Deity as is proposed by theologians must be pronounced irrational, and derogatory to the wisdom and perfection which we recognize in the invariable order of nature. It is impossible for us to conceive the supreme Being acting otherwise than we actually see in nature; and if we recognize in the universe the operation of his infinite wisdom and power, it is in the immutable order and regularity of all phenomena, and the eternal prevalence of law that we see their highest manifestation.” It is asserted by this writer and a great number of others, that the most perfect conception of the universe is that of a machine, which when once set into action shall go on eternally grinding out its results without the smallest occasion for the intervention of its Maker. According to this view, all the He has to do for the future after the machine is once set into operation, is to retire from the scene of His creative work, and to contemplate the results of its wonderful operations. Any intervention on His part would imply a defect in the construction of the machine. It follows therefore that the most perfect conception of God (if there be one) is that of a perfect mechanist and chemist, who has originally formed matter with its properties and forces acting in conformity with invariable law, and that this has been done by Him with such perfection, that they have gone on ever since evolving whatever has existed, without the need of His intervention or supervision; or to put it in other words, after the original act of creation, His presence in the universe may be dispensed with as unnecessary. The universe is therefore a self‐acting machine which goes on in an eternal series of self‐evolutions.